Journal Writing Experience

In my previous blog post I mentioned that I'm to start writing a private journal. I had many concerns about how I would achieve this and whether my current writing style was appropriate for such a task. Task 2a (Reflective Practice) states "You may need to find your own way to 'puzzle through'". I was certainly feeling puzzled to begin with!

Fortunately in the description of task 2b: Reflective writing, we are given suggestions of styles of writing. these include description, initial reflection, evaluation and more. I was happy that I had found some guidelines to work around. I had begun my writing without making any conscious efforts to tailor my thoughts to a specific style. I then began to implement the suggestions I had been given.

I found it to be increasingly difficult to write a little bit about my day each day as I went along because there wasn't necessarily something new and different in every instance. We recently premiered a new ballet at Teater Vanemuine called 'The Snowqueen'. The days leading up to the premiere became a blur as the company got into a routine of stage runs and the only variables ended up being whether we were rehearsing in costume and make-up. I found it a struggle to write something that I felt was consistently engaging to read and led me to question whether it was down to my writing style or down to the lack of inspiration that I was having such a hard time.

I then had a look at the suggestions for writing styles and tried to identify what methods I find myself naturally using. I feel that the way I approached my journal was similar to how I write my blog. I try and write as if someone will be reading it despite the journal being private. I saw that I used 'description' to tell what happened during the day. I used 'initial reflection' in order to give it a personal touch. Because otherwise, I would have just been purely listing the events of the day which would be heavily reliant on that day being interesting to make it worth reading. I lastly used 'evaluation'. Mainly as a device to wrap up my writing. I don't think I'd find myself doing that if it wasn't for the interest of someone else having a read.

After I had tried that I began applying styles that I hadn't used previously. One suggestion was to make a graph or diagram. I found this very unusual as I would never have thought to present my ideas in this fashion. I didn't want it to end up being a graph just for the sake of rearranging the layout, so I tried to think what ideas would make sense in that format. I then came up with the idea of weighing up the good parts and bad parts of the day in a table and comparing them. This was interesting as I could see I had already started to change the way I approached my journal just from one suggestion.

Another suggestion was to think 'What if?' This was interesting to me because up until this point I'd mainly used my journal for documenting events and providing my initial thoughts. This was a nice exercise in being much more imaginative and I suddenly felt like there was so much more in my head that I'd not explored because prior to that I'd only concerned myself with the facts and my first thoughts to them, nothing further.

The same thing goes for another suggestion which was to write from the perspective of someone/something else. This was another thing I'd not considered as I'd only ever proceeded as if my journal should be through my eyes. In the same way as asking 'What if?' this allowed me much more freedom with my mind.

I expressed curiosities in my previous blog post about whether this journal would affect my writing style. I have to say that I'm still very much working on getting my thoughts out from my brain and through to my fingers as I type, but what I have found is that if I'm struggling with inspiration I now have more tools at my disposal for finding a way to write.

A Private Journal?

As I'm browsing over the tasks for Part 2 of my course I see that the first task requires me to start a private journal. The idea is not to share it publicly but to keep a record of my thoughts of the tasks and my own professional experience in order to exercise my reflective skills. It feels strange to work on something that isn't initially for presentation however we are encouraged to use excerpts towards later modules.

For a start I'm interested to see if this affects my writing style in any way. I find that I can have many thoughts swirling around my mind. When it's a requirement to write them out it can often be a struggle to organise them in a well rounded, orderly fashion. Already as I've been writing this paragraph I have stopped multiple times to re-write and find a draft that I am satisfied with before continuing. Many people I know, upon discussing writing techniques have told me that they will simply write everything as it comes out, then go back to review their writing and re-adjust accordingly. I find that very difficult to do. Perhaps I just want to have everything 'perfect' too quickly and my impatience blocks my writing flow, or maybe it's just my method of writing and I'll have to accept that that's how I work.

In my blog post about Technology's effect on the dance world, I found that having a quick brainstorm of my ideas before writing served as a very good method of finding a framework for my post. Hopefully keeping that in mind will serve me well for any future writing of mine. Over time I'll be interested to see if my approach to writing and organising my thoughts changes. I think the journal will act as a good excercise for both my writing and evaluation skills.

Just like blogging, the idea of a journal feels very new to me but I'm excited to see what will come of it and see how it will affect my learning experience as I make the transition from 'traditional' classroom learning to the BAPP course that I am on now.